


Promises, Promises (Until We Meet Again)

by Copper_Nails (Her_Madjesty)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Meeting in a diner at 2am, Reincarnation, latent force bond that doesn't quite work properly in this new universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Copper_Nails
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the lack of the light that brings them together, but rather the promise of the dawn. </p>
<p>Based off the Tumblr prompt: "Your otp meets in a diner at 2am".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises, Promises (Until We Meet Again)

**Author's Note:**

> *throws hands up in the air*
> 
> I hope you all like this piece! I never intended for it to get this long, but it demanded writing. I wanted to play with a sort of "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" vibe, where these two meet in a neutral space and don't know each other, but somehow feel connected and have (seemingly) had a similar meeting (or many similar meetings) before. Who knows? I could write those other meetings, at some point. Not right now, though. Unless this really takes off.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! Let me know what you thought! XOXO

Rey doesn't know what time it is, but she knows it's late, far too late to be anywhere but home. Her knuckles are white as she grips the steering wheel. She has another half hour of driving until she reaches her apartment, but she'd been barely awake when she'd left the auto shop. It's only her long experience with driving half asleep that's keeping her on the road now.

She doesn't see the beer bottle, but then again, why should she? The adrenaline rush she gets when she runs it over wakes her right up.

Rey snaps out a curse and does her best to guide the car over to the side of the road. Only when the car has safely stopped moving does she slam her hands against the wheel. 

Of course this would happen to her tonight. Of course.

 She doesn't know why she expected anything else.

The highway she’s driving on is distressingly empty. Rey turns on her hazards anyway before she climbs out of the car, just in case some sleepless trucker happens to drive by. She wipes away tears on her grease-strained flannel and blames them on stress. Then she kneels and tries to assess the damage.

The gash in the tire is about two inches long and hissing as air escapes. Rey bites her lip. Her spare is no more than a half-inflated doughnut; she figures she can get twenty five miles before it goes dead. Home isn’t an option, then, but an exit with an auto shop is. She’ll have to wait until morning, but it’s not like Rey hasn’t slept in her car before. She’ll manage.

Above her, thunder rumbles. Rey pays it no mind until she’s halfway through the tire change. Then she feels a raindrop land on her nose.

Rey closes her eyes as the sky lets loose. She grits her teeth, tightens her grip on the tire, and does her damndest not to scream.

Doughnut in place, Rey scrambles back into the car. She sits behind the wheel for a moment and tries not to twitch as rainwater runs down her spine. It’s nearly impossible to see with rain hammering on the windshield. Rey sighs. It was going to be slow going, anyway; this will just make things even slower.

Rey clings to her last fragments of hope as she starts to drive. She keeps her eyes peeled for a sign or a shop or _anything_ that will let her pull over, park, and pretend that the majority of this night didn’t happen.

Thunder cracks overhead. A bolt of lightning paints the sky a violent white. 

Between one crack and the next, a yellow light appears.

Rey has to squint to see it, and spends a good minute staring just to make sure that it’s real. Then, she presses her foot down on the gas. She doesn’t want to hydroplane or run herself off the road, but she’ll be damned if she’s staying out here for a minute longer.

The light, she finds, is coming from a sign for a twenty-four hour diner. ‘Takodana’ is spelled out in ancient neon like it’s supposed to mean something, but Rey doesn’t pay it any mind.

She pulls off of the highway and into the parking lot, sliding her car into a spot before killing the engine. Then, she sits, letting the rain pour down just above her head.

She closes her eyes and breathes.

It’s been a long day. She’d woken early to go to her classes at the nearest community college – and by nearest, she meant “the only college within fifty miles than will help her get a job when she graduates”, – then spent her afternoon alternating between studying and stealing fries from various friends’ plates. Her evening brought her to Niima Auto Repair, where she worked until they closed at midnight, then stayed late to finish her own projects.

Every bone in her body aches, either from exhaustion or from the knowledge that she’s going to have to do it all again tomorrow – today? – in the morning. Rey groans. She’s been following this pattern for what feels like years, but in reality has only been five months. There’s a price to living, she remembers reading, maybe on a blog somewhere, and everyone has to pay it; her price, it seems, is being wrought out of her in sweat and tears and sleepless hours.

Not to say she’s not grateful for the opportunities. She’d feel better, though, if she actually had time to sleep.

Lightning cracks overhead. Rey opens her eyes with a start and hears her stomach growl. The yellow tint of the diner windows almost looks appealing, if she squints. A shadow shifts inside. Someone’s in there, though she supposes someone has to be.

She could go inside. Rey squirms in her seat until her stomach rumbles again. She can ask for whatever’s cheapest on the menu, if they make her order. She could probably use the food.

It’s got to be warmer in there than it is in her car, anyway.

Rey takes one last deep breath, grabs her things, and ducks into the rain.

She loses a moment locking the door behind her, but she makes it inside. Her shirt and bra are soaked through and her hair’s hanging in her face, but she really doesn’t care. She strolls up to the counter and takes a seat, letting the smell of grease and potatoes wash over her. Rey shivers and opts not to think about why. Her stomach growls again. For a moment, she feels faint.

A woman makes her way out of the back and spares her a glance, only to look back, startled. The still-lucid part of Rey’s brain wonders which part it is that catches her eye: the purple bags under her eyes, the poor state of her shirt, or the fact that she looks like she’s been thrown in a lake.

“Evening, dear,” The woman says, at last. “Or morning, rather. Would you like a menu?”

“Yes, please.”

The woman wanders off and returns with a sheet of laminated paper that looks like it’s come straight from a printer. Rey holds it like it’s precious, anyway, and scans over the prices before she looks at the food. All the while, she feels the woman watching her. She glances up and catches a flash of the woman’s name tag: Maz K., manager.

“I’ll have a coffee,” Rey says. “And a bowl of potato soup. Please.”

Maz nods and walks to the back, not bothering to write the order down. It takes her no time at all to return, a bowl in one hand and a cup in the other. Rey cradles the cup to her chest and blows on it until it cools, casting a wary eye around the yellow-tinged décor. It’s a standard diner, she thinks, if her meager knowledge of diners tells her anything.

Then, a shadow shifts. Through the haze of rain and exhaustion, Rey sees a man unfold himself from where he was leaning against the window, his too-long legs dangling off the end of the booth.

The urge to stare is strong, but Rey chalks it up to her need for sleep. She turns back to her coffee and takes a sip, letting it warm her from the inside out. Maz looks up at her appreciative moan and offers her a smile.

The diner is silent, save for the sounds of Rey’s spoon in her bowl and Maz’s fussing behind the counter. Rey glances at the figure again. He looks as sleep deprived as she does, two mugs of coffee sitting on the table in front of him. His hair (or what she thinks she can see) is pulled back into a dark bun. He’s got a scar bisecting his face that she supposes makes him look intimidating, but in the yellow light of the diner it only makes him look old.

He catches her staring and lifts an eyebrow. Rey looks away and counts the flowers on the bottom of her soup bowl, instead.

There’s something about him that’s familiar.

Thunder rumbles overhead, then settles deep in her bones. Rey glances at the man's reflection in the metallic backsplash. She tries to match the contours of his face with something in her memory, narrows her eyes until the image distorts, but nothing clicks. Still, it’s there, humming just beneath her skin. 

The seat beside her creaks. Rey jumps as the man sits down beside her.

For a moment, they’re silent. Rey stares at him, unabashed (he’s _huge_ , and really, she should have assumed that, but his shoulders are like mountains and he’s so damn tall that it hurts her neck to look up at him) until, at last, he speaks.

“Like what you see?”

The moment breaks. Rey guffaws and turns back to her soup which, to her disappointment, is almost gone. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

“S’alright,” the man shrugs. “I’m used to it.”

She’s not sure if he’s being conceited or honest, and frankly, she doesn’t want to ask. When she turns to look for Maz, she finds that the woman has disappeared.

“So,” she says. “Is it the company that brought you out here, or something else?”

The joke works; the man laughs. “I could ask you the same question,” he says. “But how about we start simply?”

Rey raises an eyebrow. The man does the same, then sticks out his hand. “I’m Kylo.”

Rey hesitates, then reaches out and shakes. “Rey.”

There’s something familiar about the way their hands slide together, like they’ve done it before. Kylo’s palm is warm, calloused; it dwarfs Rey’s, but she feels strong, all the same. The touch lingers a moment too long. Then, Kylo drops her hand like it’s hot. Rey drags her hand across her jeans and winces as it comes away wet.

“So,” she says. “What do you do?”

Kylo’s hands flex at his side, but a crooked smile works its way across his face. “I’m in between jobs at the moment,” he tells her. “But I used to work in the mayor’s office.”

“Really?” Rey doesn’t know the name of the mayor, let alone where they stand politically, so she’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. “So you’re a politician?”

“Of a sort, I suppose.” Kylo shrugs. “I spent most of my time growing up around politicians, but my first job was in security. I sort of moved around as I got older, until…” he shrugs again. “Life changed.”

Rey presses her mouth together in a semblance of a grimace.

“But what about you?” Kylo asks.

“Hm? Oh, I work in an auto shop. I’m a student, too, so it’s a bit of a balance.” Rey knows her laugh is nervous, but Kylo doesn’t seem to catch it.

“How old are you?”

“I turned twenty two a few weeks ago.” Rey says. “You?”

“I’ll be thirty one at the end of the year.”

“Ah,” Rey shakes her head, mock disappointment. “You’re an old man, I see. Diners seem like the place for old men to hang out.”

“Now wait a minute,” Kylo’s chuckle lights him up, his bright eyes chasing all the dark shadows from his face. “Thirty is not old. It’s a perfectly reasonable age. And I’ll have you know that this diner has some of the best chocolate pie in fifty miles, and I _deserve it_ after the day I’ve had.”

“Oh, wow, now you really sound old.” Rey teases. “No need to get defensive, Gramps, I understand.”

Kylo shudders. “Don’t call me that ever again. You don’t have to be _old_ to appreciate dessert.”

Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or maybe it’s the coffee, but Rey feels lighter than she has in days. She and Kylo snipe at each other until Maz returns, and Kylo orders two slices of chocolate pie just to prove his point. Maz returns a short time later with two plates and a suspicious smile. Rey ignores her as she tucks in, her stomach thanking her strange new friend, even if her mouth won’t.

“But really,” Kylo says, when his plate is nearly clear. “What are you doing out here so late?”

Rey takes another bite of her pie, mulling it over in her mouth before replying. “I had a late night at work,” she admits, a moment later. “I was on my way home, but my car has a flat tire.”

Kylo whistles and shakes his head.

“And what about you?”

Some of the good humor goes out of his eyes. Rey looks at him, carefully, and wonders where they’ve done this before.

Outside the window, a fog has gathered. She can’t tell if it’s still raining, but there’s an infrequent pattering coming from the roof that is either the storm or an ambitious squirrel.

The yellow lights of the diner flicker. If she were to look back into the kitchen, Rey would see Maz, her head bent over a book, short and stooped and undetermined of age. In the light, gone muzzy by the fog, she looks almost immortal.

Kylo’s looking at her, though, and his gaze is lightning through her memory. His eyes are large but not unpleasant, she decides; they give away his emotions too easily for someone claiming to be a politician.

“I didn’t feel like going home.”

There’s a look in his eye that Rey’s come to recognize; she saw it in the mirror more than once, growing up. Kylo looks away and plays with his fork, dismissing (or perhaps ignoring) the way she’s staring. She senses something in him, deep and hidden, and she wants to pry. It’s there like an itch, resting alongside the ever-present feeling that they’ve had this interrogation before.

“Are you sure I haven’t met you somewhere?” she asks.

Kylo huffs out a laugh. The fork looks like a toy in his hands. “Believe me,” he says. “If we had met before, I’d have remembered it. You don’t seem easy to forget.”

The laugh that escapes her makes her sound like she’s been punched; it’s involuntary, short, dog-like in its snap. “You’d be the first to think so.”

Kylo looks back at her, an eyebrow raised. It’s Rey’s turn to play at ignorance; she focuses on the countertop, instead, and wonders if she should ask for another cup of coffee. She has no idea what time it is anymore.

“Was it a guy?”

There’s an awkwardness in Kylo’s voice; she’s not sure if it makes her want to laugh or cry. Rey chooses to chuckle and makes a game of tracing the cracks in the counter. “No,” she says. “It wasn’t a guy.”

The silence tells her that he’s waiting for more. The story is heavy on her tongue. Rey lifts her gaze and catches a glimpse of her reflection in the silver backsplash. She’s distorted and wide-eyed and looks far too young to be so broken.

“I grew up in the foster system,” she says. “And there’s no one who knows ‘forgotten’ like a foster kid.”

It falls out of her, after that: the houses that weren’t homes, the mothers who couldn’t remember her name, the fathers who either worked too much or didn’t work at all. The siblings, she tells Kylo, were always the worst: they either banded together against her or pretended she didn’t exist.

Somewhere between in the middle of her story, another piece of pie arrives on her plate, and her coffee cup refills. Rey didn’t see Kylo move, nor Maz appear, but she doesn’t question it.

“It’s better, now,” she says. “I’m alone, sure, but I can handle myself.”

She hesitates as Kylo raises a brow. “I work. I go to school. I manage rent, and groceries, sometimes. I’m too busy to be lonely.”

There’s something heavy in Kylo’s gaze as she trails off, but Rey refuses to give it name. She tries to explain herself, but the more she talks, the bigger the hole in her chest becomes. She falls silent in pieces until her steady stream of words is wrought down to a dribbles.

The pie is a comfort. Rey focuses on it instead of on Kylo and runs from the feeling of dread building in her stomach. She takes a bite and tries to ignore the silence.

Kylo doesn’t tell her he’s sorry. He doesn’t offer her platitudes or false compliments. Instead, he looks down at his mug (which has also been refilled) and says, “Your life sounds like it was shit, Rey.”

He flushes at once. Rey, on the other hand, starts laughing so hard that she nearly chokes.

It takes her a while to settle down, and even longer for her shoulders to stop shaking. Kylo looks mortified, but he’s smiling when she looks up, so it must not be so bad after all. Rey smiles back at him, half of her still too busy trying not to laugh while the other half worries about the possibility of pie staining her teeth.

“Well,” she says with a shrug. “It’s gotta be 'tragic' to be a tragic life story. Didn’t mean to spill that on you.”

“It seems the night for such things.” Kylo says. Rey would tease him for his eloquence, but it seems somehow fitting. She focuses on taking apart her pie as they lapse into silence. There’s less weight on her shoulders, she notices, but she has neither the attention nor the urge to address what’s been taken away.

She finishes her piece of pie and pushes the plate away before moving on to her coffee. Kylo turns around on his barstool and casts his gaze out the wide windows. Rey hesitates, then follows his gaze. She’s not sure what he sees, but it seems to be captivating.

“What’s out there?”

A huff of laughter. “I don’t know,” Kylo says. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Rey waits, but he doesn’t say anything more. She takes a sip of her coffee (still warm, but not burning) and tries to pick out raindrops in the black of night. She could, of course, move closer to the window, but she’s grown comfortable and doesn’t feel the urge to get up just yet. Sleeping in the car becomes unappealing after good food and a hot drink.

“What if –” Kylo says at once, his sharpness breaking their silence. “What if – no, wait. Did you ever run away?” He turns back to Rey, his eyes bright. “Living in any of those homes, you never once ran away?”

“Of course I ran away,” Rey says, confused. “I always ended up back in the system. It was either that or starve on some street corner.”

Some of Kylo’s energy seems to burn away. “But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have worked, right?” he presses on. “Running away – it can’t be completely useless, right?”

Rey narrows her eyes. It takes Kylo a moment to snap from his excitement, but when he does, he shrinks away.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Rey doesn’t answer. Instead, she sets her coffee cup aside and scoots closer. She hesitates for a moment before letting her arm brush his.

“What is it you’re running from?”

Kylo’s attention has returned to his fork. He fidgets, uncomfortable. Rey waits a moment longer, then pulls away. For a fleeting moment, she wonders if he’ll stab her, but that’s ludicrous. She doesn’t even know this man; if he has violent tendencies, he hasn’t revealed them – at least, not yet.

She wonders what his eyes would look like when he’s angry. The looks he’s given her are too soft for the image she has in her head: that image, wherever it’s from, seems so out of place in the here and now that she shakes it from her mind.

She watches as he takes a breath, his chest too large and too full and too much. All of him, it seems, is just too much.

“I – I may have killed my father.”

Rey blinks.

“It’s not what you think it is!” Kylo says, too quick, too nervous. “It was an accident. It was a really long time ago, too. It just – it’s close to the day, you know?”

Rey hums, but says nothing. Kylo fills in the silence.

“I was thirteen,” he says, “and we were going out for a drive. My dad – well, my dad _loved_ his car. He was telling me all about it: how he bought it when he was my age, how he’d been on a million dates in it, how it’d saved his ass over and over when he’d needed it to. My mom used to joke that he liked his car more than he liked her.” His laughter is broken. “So we’re driving, and he offers to let me in the front seat for a bit. I’m thirteen, and I’m a bit of a shit, but I’m totally into it. We switch seats and I start driving down this long, dirt road.”

Rey watches him as he walks, the words flowing over her. He keeps going, his hands waving through the air while his eyes go distant and foggy. The rain continues to patter on the diner roof, punctuating his story where it needs noise most. Rey catches herself laughing, once, and sees Kylo doing the same.

“But then, we come up to a stop sign,” He says. “And I try to get the car to stop, tap on the break and all that. And – well, the breaks won’t work.”

She sees what happens next more than she hears it. Kylo tells her how scared he was, but she _sees_ him.

He’d looked at his dad with wide eyes and an open mouth, insisting that, “It won’t stop, dad. I can’t make it stop!” His dad – he looks just like him, she realizes, save for the ears and the curl of his mouth – stays calm; he ducks down and presses on the break with his hand, but Kylo – Ben, then, but not anymore, Ben, “Ben?” – was right, it wasn’t working.

Then it’s a blur: “Damned old thing, don’t do this to me now!”; they’re coasting through the intersection, and these roads are usually abandoned, but not today, no, today there’s a car coming through, not bothering to stop, some old man at the wheel, and then the world’s gone sideways and everything’s a mess of dashboard and glass and Ben’s own small screaming –

Rey gasps and snaps back to the present. She reaches out on instinct until her hand finds Kylo’s shoulder. He’s shaking, she realizes, but it’s been some time since he stopped speaking. Rey squeezes, squeezes his shoulder until the fog fades from his eyes and until her own heart rate settles.

Neither of them comments on the tears running down the other's cheeks.

“I know it’s not my fault,” Kylo whispers, after a moment. “But my own mother couldn’t look me in the eye after that. She sent me to stay with my uncle.”

“Have you seen her since?” Rey asks, and, oh, her voice is breaking, too.

Kylo’s laugh is a terrible thing. “Oh, yeah. I worked for her, up until a few days ago.”

Rey bites her lip and tastes saltwater and blood.

“I thought that if I worked for her, she’d have to pay attention to me,” Kylo says. “But I was wrong. I worked in that office for eight years and I maybe saw her twice. She’s got a talented for delegating, my mother does.” His laughter is no longer wet, but old and bitter, like an old man’s should be. “I didn’t even see her when I turned in my notice. I saw her receptionist. Her receptionist helped me clean out my office, but my own mother –”

He’s crying again. Rey’s hands are still on his shoulders; she barely hesitates before coming closer and wrapping herself around him.

Kylo cries into her shoulder like the world is ending, like she’s the only thing that’s real. Rey presses her nose into his hair and stares at their reflections in the yellow windows. She meets her own gaze and sees something – a headlight? A lightning strike? – flash, and she’s momentarily blind.

They’re slow to let go of one another. It’s only when Rey’s calves start to ache that she gets down off her toes. Kylo’s head makes to follow her until he snaps it back up. His eyes are rimmed with redness; it’s a look, she thinks, that suits him, as grotesque and cruel as it sounds. Then he sniffles, and he’s human again. Rey turns and finds a stack of napkins next to their refilled coffee cups, alongside what’s likely the rest of the chocolate pudding pie. Kylo follows her gaze and almost manages a laugh.

“I’ve known Maz for a long time,” he admits as Rey passes him a napkin. “She thinks the best way to comfort people is with food.”

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Rey murmurs. Her voice feels like it hasn’t been used in hours, when, really, it’s only been a matter of minutes. She looks away as Kylo pulls himself back together. The cup of coffee Maz has left her is still steaming. She takes it in hand and sips at it, wondering what hour it is, and how long they two of them – well, three of them – have been here together.

The world outside has yet to lighten.

She hears a final sniffle a quarter of the way into her cup. Rey looks back and sees Kylo playing with his fork again, his napkin balled up and sitting in his lap. She offers him a smile and pushes the rest of the pie towards him. He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair.

“Sorry,” he says. “I promise that I’m not always like this.”

“It’s alright.” Rey shrugs. “I’m not judging.”

“Technically, you don’t have a ‘normal’ to judge me by, anyway,” Kylo says. He’s succumbed, Rey notices, to the influence of the pie; another piece is now mysteriously on his plate. “We’re supposed to be strangers.”

Rey shrugs again. “What? You mean you _don’t_ usually tell strangers these kinds of things?”

“I’ll admit that this is my first time.” Kylo says dryly. “Should I have introduced myself differently? ‘Hello, my name is Kylo, and I have emotional baggage’?”

Rey hums, but she feels the corners of her mouth lifting. “That’s not quite right. You need something more original.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Kylo,” Rey says, her tongue lingering over his name. “We’re both a little fucked up, don’t you think?”

Kylo huffs, but some of the amusement leaves his eyes. He lifts a piece of pie to his mouth and fixes his gaze on the silver backsplash.

“We are,” he says. “But at least we’re fucked up together, yeah?”

Rey hums. She swipes a bite of his pie and smiles as he looks up, flabbergasted. The mood in the diner lightens and leaves them both laughing quietly.

“What if we,” Kylo starts. He clears his throat and sets his fork aside. “What if we run away?”

Rey tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

“We could do it, you know,” he says. “I’ve got nothing here for me, and you – there are technical schools everywhere. We could drive for hours, go somewhere new where no one knew our names, and make a life for ourselves.”

Rey can see it, the future he’s talking about. The two of them, splitting rent on some shoebox apartment, going to work every day without the strings of their pasts attached. Weekends spent curled in bed instead of wondering where they’ll get their next meal, or if someone knows that they’re gone.

“I’d like that,” Rey says. “But I told you. That never works.”

“But we could give it a go,” Kylo insists. “You and me, against all of that out there? We’re bigger than that. We’re so much better than that.”

Rey frowns and fixes her gaze on her plate.

What would her life be like, she wonders, if she left this place behind? Would she be happy? She risks a glance at Kylo and sees his eyes glittering with hope. They _could_ do it, she knows they could. If anyone could manage it, it would be them.

“I want to,” she tells him. “I really, really want to.”

She feels him hesitate. Then, his large hand moves to cover hers. Rey turns and looks up into a pair of unfathomably deep eyes.

“Come away with me,” Kylo says.

Rey opens her mouth to say something – anything – but no sound comes out. She’s stuck in the moment, staring, until her hand curls beneath his. Kylo moves his other hand and cradles hers between his two. Rey watches, quiet, as he brings it to his lips and kisses her knuckles.

“I want to,” she whispers. “But you know we can’t.”

Something shifts in Kylo’s gaze, something sad and angry and broken all at once. He lets Rey’s hand go as gently as he can and watches as it falls into her lap.

There’s a cough from behind the counter. The two strangers leapt apart and find Maz watching at them, her arms crossed over her chest.

The three of them stare at each other. At last, Rey offers Maz an awkward smile.

The older woman snorts. The diner shakes as all three of them burst into laughter.

“You children,” Maz sighs at last, wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s six in the morning. Shouldn’t you be home?”

Kylo and Rey exchange a glance. “I have to go to class at nine,” Rey says. “There’s not much point in sleeping.”

“And I,” Kylo starts, then trails off. “I suppose I have to go find a job.”

Rey can’t help it; she reaches out and brushes her fingers over his hand. Kylo flinches, then lets himself relax into her touch.

The familiarity is overwhelming and weighs like mist in the air. Rey wants to wrap her fingers through his, because she _knows_ , she just knows, that this is gentleness he hasn’t experienced in a long, long time. Maybe longer than she could imagine.

But Kylo pulls his hand away. He clears his throat and pushes away from the counter, brushing invisible crumbs off of his dark shirt.

“Here,” he pulls his wallet out and throws a twenty down on the counter. “Thank you for the pie. And for the coffee.”

“Think nothing of it, child,” Maz says, taking the money and placing it into her apron. “Be well, won’t you?”

Kylo nods, but doesn’t answer. He glances at Rey and catches her eye. Something crackles between them, but he looks away too quickly for Rey to parse what it is.

He’s turned and nearly out of the diner when Rey calls to him.

“Will I ever see you again?”

She hears him chuckle, sees him glance at her over his shoulder. “Do you want to?”

Rey nods, something tight and hot wrapping around her heart. Kylo hesitates a moment longer, then comes back to her, pulling his phone from his coat. Rey punches in her number and commands him to text her. Kylo raises an eyebrow, but he does as he’s told.

She thinks he’s going to leave again, but he waits. Kylo glances behind her and, apparently finding Maz gone, leans down until he’s next to her ear.

“If you ever want to run away,” he whispers. “Don’t hesitate to call me. I was serious when I said I would.”

He goes to pull away, but Rey catches him by his wrist. She pulls him back and looks him in the eye, her gaze sparkling in the yellow light.

“Don’t you dare leave without me.”

 The smile Kylo gives her is dazzling.

(Somehow, somewhere, she knows they’ve done this before. Maybe they’ve kept doing it, over and over again, meeting and remeeting until, at last, they’ve gotten it right. Maybe.) 

(She hopes they have.)

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Kylo kisses her hand once more, then pulls himself away. His long legs carry him from the diner in no time, and he leaves the door hanging open behind him. Rey stares after him until he’s climbed into his car, then keeps staring, even after he’s driven away.

She only turns away when she hears Maz cough. Rey finds the woman smiling at her like she has a secret that she’s not going to share.

“I’m so sorry that I stayed so long,” Rey says, reaching for her wallet.

Maz waves her apology and her money away and retains her smile. “Think nothing of it, child,” she says. “Your man there has covered your meal. And as for the time, well,” her smile grows larger. “Forgive an old woman, but I consider myself lucky to have witnessed your meeting. I haven’t seen something like that in quite some time.”

One of the lights above them flickers. Rey thinks she sees something written into the lines of Maz’s face, but it’s gone in a moment.

Whatever’s going on, whatever’s happened tonight; Rey has no definition for it. She takes a deep breath, looks down at her phone, and wonders if this has all been some exhaustion-fueled hallucination.

“I should go,” she says. “There’ll be an auto shop somewhere that’s open this early.”

Maz nods, but says nothing more. Rey lingers, then forces herself to stand from her barstool. Her legs are wobbly, but she walks boldly, her hands skimming over the backs of hard chairs as she heads for the door.

The sun’s still not up when Rey walks from the diner, but the midnight fog has burned away. She stares at the place Kylo was parked for longer than she should, then pulls up a tab on her phone and starts looking for shops. The car sits awkwardly from the slumping doughnut, but she pays it no mind.

She’ll have to take a nap today, but that’s for later. She’s feeling more awake now than she has in – weeks? Months? Years? It’s like the sun’s rising in her chest, opening her eyes to a world she’s not sure she’s ever seen before.

A text pops up on her phone, interrupting her search. Rey opens it and finds herself smiling.

<< From Kylo Ren:

Don’t be afraid, Rey. I feel it, too. >>


End file.
